Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 9777
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Tyler , Elizabeth M.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Fictions of Family: The "Encomium Emmae Reginae" and Virgil's "Aeneid" [Tyler argues that the author of the "Encomium" sought to support Queen Emma by recounting the Danish conquest and rule of England. His history makes use of fiction and even lies to fashion a politically favorable account. Title note supplied by Feminae.]
  • Source: Viator 36, ( 2005): Pages 149 - 179.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Journal Article
  • Subject (See Also): Emma, Queen of England and Denmark Encomium Emmae Reginae, Latin Text Historiography Laudatory Literature Politics Propaganda Queens Rhetoric Sources Virgil, Ancient Poet- Aeneid
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: British Isles
  • Century: 11
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  • Table:
  • Abstract: The "Encomium Emmae Reginae" was written in the early 1040s to support the interests of Queen Emma as the period of Danish rule in England came tumultuously to an end. Its author was probably a Flemish monk from the foundation of Saint-Bertin. Recent scholarship suggests that the Encomiast wrote from within and for the Anglo-Danish court, whose members were intimately familiar with Emma’s role in the complex dynastic politics of the Anglo-Danish period. This article considers the impact of writing in this context for the Encomiast’s understanding of his text as historiography and argues that he uses Virgil’s Aeneid, and the tradition of commentaries on this text, to explore the nature of fiction and history. The terms of his exploration are sophisticated and reveal that he was working in an intellectual climate which would, in the twelfth century, begin to produce coherent conceptual arguments for the truth of made-up fictions. [Reproduced from the journal website: http://brepols.metapress.com/content/121213/?p=afdbc79947a4444b9739ff05942fde63&pi=0]
  • Related Resources:
  • Author's Affiliation: University of York
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 2005.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 00835897